Milan kept themselves in the title race last night, with an emphatic 5-1 win over Udinese at San Siro.

Though it was the forwards such as Kaka and Alexandre Pato who starred, defender Luca Antonini put in a good performance as well and is pleased with his side's end to what has been a tumultuous calendar year.

"We are all very happy about this victory because it will allow us to spend Christmas in the best possible way, more calmly," explained the former Empoli player.

"For me it was important to be a protagonist in a victory like this, with five goals, and I am happy about the support from the fans.

"I want to continue working like this to continue improving and to make everyone proud of me. At the start of the season I hoped to get to this stage like this, but my intention is continue working hard and continue improving.

"Concerning the Scudetto, I don't think the race is finished, there are a lot of matches until the end, and today we showed we are still in the race. Inter don't scare us and we will fight until the end to reduce the nine-point deficit."

Milan are now alone in third place following Napoli's defeat in Turin against Torino yesterday.